Social networks: pressure or routine control?

Social networks are becoming a good tool of bringing people together to coordinate their civil activity. Pictured: Nikita Glushik, 19, visits Russian site Vkontakte at an Internet cafe, Moscow. Source: AP

Will more protests cause more problems for Russia’s social networks?

After historic protests earlier this month,
activists alleged that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) repeatedly tried
to interfere in the activity of some social networks to block opposition groups
supporting mass demonstration against the 2011 elections. Many are concerned
that the next protest, scheduled on Dec. 24, will result in new pressures on
social networks such as Vkontakte, known as Russia’s Facebook.

Before post-election protests in central Moscow,
some Russian media outlets, blogs and social networks had their websites
blocked or attacked by hackers. Four days before the large-scale demonstrations
on Bolotnaya Square, the FSB allegedly pushed Pavel Durov, a founder the social
website VKontakte, to assist in blocking the opposition. Durov said that the
Russian secret police had demanded that his site ban online opposition groups
supporting post-election protests, as well as vocal anti-corruption blogger
Alexei Navalny - who had been arrested before during the protests near the
Chistye Prudy metro station. Yet Durov refused to ban opposition groups and,
moreover, published a copy of the police order.

Durov was ordered to appear at a prosecutor’s
office. Afterward, the Vkontakte press service seemed to tone down Durov’s
initial statements, stating that the secret police only made some “routine
requests.” If something “doesn’t meet our principles and contradicts the law,” the
company has the right to reject these requests, said Vladislav Tsypluhin, the
social network’s press-secretary. In reality, he added, FSB asked to ban only
those groups that provoked violence and unrest in the streets.

“This is not the
first instance of pressure on social networks,” said Alexander Morozov, a well-known
blogger. “Last summer we witnessed Yandex [Russia’s largest search engine] face
the same problems. The FSB requested the information about Alexei Navalny’s
personal account and all his transactions.”

According to Morozov, Durov’s public refusal to ban opposition
groups was the kind of response that is good business for his company. Given
the interest of foreign investors in Russia’s Internet projects and its
international heft, this move will only attract foreign investors and result in
positive consequences for its capitalization. “It is essential for foreign
investors that Russia’s Internet projects have some safeguards from FSB’s
undesirable interference,” Morozov argued.

He added that “the FSB has the right to control some
processes in the social media related to extremism. On the other hand, the FSB
cannot abuse its power and interfere with citizens’ activity [such as the
organizations of peaceful demonstration via the Internet] without bringing
about negative consequences.”

The Russian government is
allowed to monitor private, online correspondence if there is suspicion that
the communication could lead to instability.
The so-called system of operative investigative activities (SORM-2) introduced
in 2000 is a program that allows Russia’s federal security agencies to force
Internet service providers install special devices, which help track all e-mail
messages and private correspondence on social networks.

Social
networks were used as a tool to coordinate the Manezh Square public unrest in December
2010 when about 10,000 nationalists and
footbal fans took to the streets in response to the murder of a Russian football fan. These protests gave the authorities a reason
to change Russia’s criminal legislation regarding the dissemination of extremist
information on the Internet.

The
amendments to the Criminal Code proposed by the State Duma could complicate the
life of most Internet users by extending its provisions not only to registered
mass media, but also to unregistered blogs including those in social networks.
This move sparked the fear that the Kremlin would impose more restrictions on
the freedom of the speech in Internet before the 2011 parliamentary elections
and the 2012 presidential campaign.

Morozov
defended the bill as a good tool to prevent the spread of the extremism
information in the Internet and at the same time criticized it as probable tool
of censorship. “Definitely, bloggers should be responsible for their
instigation to violence and extremism in social networks and forums which are
overwhelmed with aggressive and nationalistic rhetoric,” he said. “But the
punishment should be fair towards those responsible for the spread of extremist
information and shouldn’t turn into political censorship.”

Yuri
Korgunyuk, expert at the Indem think tank in Moscow, said that government efforts to
interfere in the social network’s activity before the Dec. 24 protests will not
be effective this time. “The authorities’ request to monitor social networks
before demonstrations has been common in our country,” he said. “This practice
is not new and hardly likely to be changed. But it won’t bring any positive
results.”

The
government should come up with more reasonable measures to establish dialogue
with the people, he added.

“I don’t
think that social networks pose any threat for the society,” Morozov said.
“Most of registered users are belonged to young audience comprising high-school
students and different interest and ethnical groups.” Vkontakte is not engaged
in subversive or extremism activity that can undermine stability, he said. “We should understand that even though a
group of people registered in the social network share some radical or
aggressive views such as nationalism, it shouldn’t be banned because these
communities are legal and their members don’t necessarily commit the crime. Police
should deal with persons who instigate violence and crime, not social networks.”

Morozov added that government measures will not
prevent people from assembling for future protests. He hopes that upcoming
demonstrations will bring more people than previous ones did.